Twice Around
by Hailite
Summary: Everybody thought it would be happily ever after when the Allied Shinobi Forces defeated Madara. They were wrong. Fifteen years later, the Nanadaime Hokage finds himself in the middle of the bloody Fifth Great Ninja War. One devastating loss after another sends him back in time to make things right for the future. If only he knew what went wrong in the first place...
1. Chapter 1

He saw red. The tinge in his vision, the blood, the sunset. And through it all, Hinata's crumpling form. Stained with red. Panic gripped his entire body, scrambling his thoughts. It filled his ears with a deafening pulse and drowned out even the madness of war. He watched in horror as a crimson flower bloomed on her chest. It grew larger as she turned paler, spilling onto the parched ground.

"N-Naruto." his name was barely a whisper, but with that voice it was more than enough to bring him to his knees.

"It's okay Hinata. It'll be okay. I'll take you to Sakura right now and she'll fix you up good as new…" Naruto trailed off, realizing the foolishness in his words.

Even if he could move Hinata in her state, Sakura wouldn't be able to help her. Sakura was dead. She had sacrificed her own life to bring half of Konoha's shinobi back from the brink of death. There wasn't a more honorable way to die, Naruto knew that. Nevertheless, he couldn't help thinking that if he'd been a better leader, she would still be standing there beside him. It nearly broke Naruto. If Hinata was to die, he would be right behind her.

"Naruto…" Hinata drew in a ragged breath, "I love you. I've… always loved you. Since I could remember."

"I know! I mean, I love you too. That's why you're not going to die on me, okay?" He rambled, stumbling over the words, "I'm just an idiot. I don't—I'm hopeless without you, so you can't leave me." The tears were flowing freely now, tracing lines through the grime on his face.

"Don't… cry." Hinata's made a move as if to brush them away, then stopped halfway. She didn't have the energy. Naruto grasped her hand in his and squeezed it as hard as he dared. "Take care of the kids… Don't eat too much ramen…" She forced out. Every word was excruciating.

"Please."

"I know you will make things right again… I believe in you…"

Her lips curved into one last beautiful, brilliant, wonderful smile and she was still.

Naruto stared in disbelief. No, this couldn't be happening. Not Hinata. Not sweet, quiet Hinata who didn't have a mean bone in her body. She didn't deserve any of this. He was the one who should have been the one hit by the jutsu. Not her. He held his wife's limp form and yelled. Letting all of his grief, all his frustration pour out. Who cared who saw? Who cared he was on a battlefield? He'd had enough. To hell with the Fifth Great Shinobi War.

It wasn't just him, but Konoha as well had suffered too much. All that pain and loss was supposed to end after the five nations united to thwart Infinite Tsukuyomi. That was it. Naruto and Hinata, along with their friends were ready to pass on their will of fire, set the stage for a new generation. They would have watched proudly as their children grew to replace them as the unbreakable pillars that supported Konoha. In time, those very children would have kids of their own, guide them down their path, and the cycle would repeat itself. Peace, love, end of story. So how did they end up here? Dead, injured and broken. If only they'd noticed the corruption sooner.

Naruto trembled, realizing he would never see Hinata smile again. Her soft, pure laugh, her warm touch. All of her many good parts, even the few bad parts that he had come to love. They were gone forever. Because he was too incompetent to notice the deadly shards of rock aimed at his heart, she had to do it for him. Because he was helpless, Hinata died to save a useless, pathetic excuse of a man.

A large hand fell onto Naruto's shoulder. He stiffened slightly but didn't turn to see who it was. If they were an enemy, he would be dead by now. If it was a friend, they should have known to leave him to his grief.

"Nanadaime. Please stand up." A deep, rough voice.

It seemed almost familia and at the same time, very off. Who was this person? Couldn't they see he wanted to be left alone?

"You are the nine-tails jinchuriki, savior of the shinobi world, reincarnation of Asura. Stand up."

Meaningless. Those titles wouldn't bring his friends back. Whoever it was, they were very close to losing that hand. And everything attached to it.

"What if I told you that there _is_ a way for you to be reunited with your friends?" The voice said, as if reading his mind.

Naruto carefully placed Hinata's body on the ground. What was he trying to say? Edo-tensei? Dangerously tempting, but deep down he knew the dead were dead and nothing he did would change that. This person had to be crazy to suggest otherwise. Crazy and up to no good.

"We can change it. We can change everything."

He turned to see the face of the lunatic,

"Do it right this time."

Naruto barely managed to glimpse a brown cloak before the world was turned upside down. Left was right, here was there, and then neither was neither because everything began swirling together. Naruto would have leaned over to throw up but there wasn't anything to lean over to. The world had somehow turned into an enormous kaleidoscope and he was trapped in it. A tiny voice of reason told him he was under a genjutsu. He hadn't felt genjutsu this disorientating since Sasuke and he was dead. Naruto cursed himself for not killing the stranger sooner, now he would be killed instead. Oh well, he supposed it wasn't too bad. He could see Hinata again.

The medley of colours and shapes zoomed past him. Naruto thought he caught a few familiar faces though it must have been his imagination because those people were long gone. Black started slowly creeping in from the edges. Time to join them. Then, just before the darkness became absolute, something completely out of place caught his eye.

Was that… A ramen poster?

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><p><strong>Afterthoughts...<strong>

**So that was it. My first fanfic ever! This stuff takes longer to write than I thought.**

**I guess this chapter was a little depressing, but don't worry, it'll get happier because I don't like sad stories. Actually the plot is so half-baked I'm not really sure what's going to happen myself. I know it's a cliched concept but I just love these kind of stories so much that I couldn't help myself.**

**I'm also a bit of an action nerd (I'm super excited to write those badass Naruto scenes).**

**But I'll admit I can really use all the help I can get. Constructive criticism, suggestions for the story and general feedback. I know my writing isn't great so if you guys have any complaints about it, you are more than welcome to share. Don't worry, I can take the heat.**


	2. Chapter 2

The after-life was different from what Naruto had imagined. He decided he must be in hell for being letting all his precious friends die before him. Hinata's smiling face—scratched, filthy, bloodstained, and beautiful as ever. Dead. It was freshly burned into his thoughts. A piercing sorrow that would never go away. He was definitely in hell. Well, besides the uncomfortably hard ground and stiff neck, it wasn't all that bad. There certainly didn't seem to be a fiery pit crawling with souls of the damned.

Naruto pried open his eyes and was greeted by the cracked, dusty ceiling of a room. He blinked, slightly disorientated. Very much not what he was expecting. Then sat up, ignoring the thick, throbbing sensation in his head that accompanied the motion. Looking around, he began to wonder if maybe he wasn't dead, and still trapped in the Cloaked Man's genjutsu. Surely death wasn't supposed to be this simple.

The space was sparsely furnished, although it was difficult to tell for sure underneath all the garbage bags and instant ramen cups that were scattered around. There was a small bed, two cabinets and a potted plant positioned so that it hid one of the more unsightly fractures in the wall. The sporadically placed posters obviously shared the same job.

Naruto twisted his neck around so that he could see the wall closest to his head. A large Konoha sign hanging over the bed immediately caught his eye. The slightest shred of recognition stirred. He scrambled to his feet, head pounding harder still, trying to grasp it. He knew he knew the answer, but it was dangling just out of his reach. The fact that everything seemed a little bigger than normal didn't exactly help his concentration.

Naruto flopped onto the rumpled bed. Thinking through the pain was exhausting, frustrating and _not_ working. He was obviously not dead, so maybe everything was created by genjutsu. That or he'd been knocked out, healed, cleaned and delivered from the battlefield into a room specifically designed to confuse him to death.

He was just about to give up and close his eyes when he saw the ramen poster. The one he'd glimpsed before blacking out, so fleeting that he'd simply dismissed it as his imagination. Naruto let out a strangled gasp.

This was _his _room. Without a doubt, that was his poster, his bed, his faithful potted plant. About sixteen years ago, this was what he called home.

Naruto rushed to the windows, brushed the drapes aside and felt his jaw drop. Konoha looked virtually new in the beaming evening sun. But what truly surprised him wasn't the fact that the diverse buildings were all completely intact. It was the people. The hundreds of people wandering the streets openly. Even children were out, weaving through crowds, shouting, laughing, playing without a care in the world. Naruto couldn't remember the last time he could walk around freely and not worry about assassins or a fresh attack on the village.

A loud knock tore his gaze from the miracle to the door. His heart sped up even more. Who could it be? The mystery man? An enemy shinobi? Whoever it was, they had answers.

Halfway to the entrance, a pulse of pain made Naruto double over. He clutched his head, teeth gritted, wiling it to pass. The knock came again, louder, as if the person was growing impatient.

"NARUTO! GET YOUR GODDAMNED ASS OUT HERE!"

He knew that voice.

Naruto nearly tore down the door in his haste.

Two slightly taken-aback genin stood at the front step. One was a girl with long pink hair and a form-fitting red dress. The forehead she was always so conscious of was creased into a scowl.

The other was a dark-haired boy with a pretty face. His black eyes glared at Naruto over a high shirt collar. There was a look of annoyance in his eyes, still innocent and mostly untouched by hatred. Naruto's most trusted ally, best friend and brother in every way except blood. He'd died fighting the enemy, taking a good fifth of their forces with him.

Behind the two was a man with silvery hair that stuck up haphazardly. He wore his trademark mask that covered the bottom half of his face and a hitai-ate slanted over one eye. The uncovered eye staring at him was a little less than three quarters of the way open, but they were open. That was more than Naruto could ever ask for.

He gaped at the three, his mind racing and somehow not going anywhere. They couldn't really be here. The three had to be transformed enemy shinobi who… Who what? Perfectly replicated his room and village and knocked on his door disguised as his deceased friends from twenty years ago? Redundant didn't even begin to cover that. Impossible was a close second.

Maybe, Naruto realized with a sinking feeling, they were just part of a genjutsu and were going to be used to torture him. It was hard to believe that with the detail he now noticed. Exactly as he remembered, from the unhappy wrinkle between Sasuke's brows to Kakashi's unique relaxed, yet somehow alert slouch. Even so, better safe than sorry. He automatically lifted his hands into the ram seal, summoning the chakra he'd need to break the illusion,

"Kai!"

Nothing happened. Sakura and Sasuke's faces went from irritated to incredulous. Their teammate was acting a little crazy.

"Haaah? What are you doing, you idiot? We came all this way to get you and you're still in your pajamas! You're unbelievable, right Sasuke?"

"Hmph. Idiot."

Naruto barely heard them. Ideas were forming, developing and being squashed in his head faster than the speed of light. He'd confirmed he wasn't under the Cloaked Man's genjutsu. Unless of course, he happened to have the Mangekyo Sharingan and put him under Tsukuyomi. That was too unlikely. Nothing significant had happened to him so far, and considering the amount of chakra it used up, any reasonably intelligent person would cram as much pain as possible into the few minutes they could sustain it. Then, amidst the shifting thoughts, there was a spark of hope.

A ridiculous idea was starting to take shape. A crazy, wild, foolish idea. He was sure he never would have come across it, even in the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind, any other day. Fortunately or unfortunately, this wasn't any other day. If everything at that moment was really happening—without a single trick involved—and Team Seven really was standing at his doorstep, it could only mean one thing.

The pieces fit, but he needed confirmation.

"Hey Naruto, are you even listening to me? Shaaaanaro!" Sakura yelling fell deaf on Naruto's ears as he dashed back into the apartment.

A split second of hesition. _The mirror, the mirror, where was the mirror…_ There, pushed into the corner of the room.

And sure enough, a boy, no older than twelve years old gawked back at him, his messy blond hair and inexplicable whisker marks exactly as Naruto remembered it nineteen years ago. He lifted his right arm. The boy mimicked him. Bright blue eyes went from mild surprise, to knowing, and then terrifically overwhelmed.

He felt a tremendous stab of pain in his brain, and fell to the floor unconscious.

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><p><strong>Afterthoughts:<strong>

**Man, I'm really having trouble with the 'flow' of thoughts here. It's kinda difficult to write about without first-hand experience (well, duh).**

**But I got it done and that's what matters in the end.**

**I hope it's not too bad :)**


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